Cattleya with glitching flowers. Is this a virus?

[BrassavolaStars]

Hello all,

I got this plant about two years ago at the NYBG orchid show. Since I’ve gotten the plant it has bloomed twice. This is its third time blooming.

Almost every time this plant has bloomed, the flowers have been defective in some way. The last time it bloomed, one of the sepals was malformed and the whole flower was lopsided. In spite of this, the plant can continued to bloom fairly easily and grows new bulbs very often. In the two years I’ve had it, it had grown maybe four or five bulbs with two more just starting now.

This is the first time it has had multiple flowers per spike so I was excited. Now that the flowers are open, there are even more glitchy than ever. One of the flowers has the lip fused to the right sepals and the colors are all patchy on all of the flowers. This is the first time that color changes have happened on the flowers. It is supposed to be pure white flower (petals and sepals) with a purple lip. The petals and sepals this time though have purple mottling/streaking. The problem is even more pronounced on the reverse side of the flowers.

I had always heard that color defects are almost always viruses. Does this look like it could be a virus?

The underside of three of the leaves does have some mild freckling but it is only present on the underside of those leaves. The tops of the leaves are pristine and all the other leaves, top and underside, are flawless. Additionally, I’ve never cut or divided this plant.